Based in Austin, La Reyna will work with brands to connect with the U.S. Hispanic market.

Director Robert Rodriguez' El Rey entertainment company is pushing further into the branded content business with the help of Vice Media.

El Rey and Vice's advertising agency, Virtue, have partnered to launch La Reyna, a new company that will focus on helping brands connect with the U.S. Hispanic market.

Based in Austin, La Reyna will work with brands to help them identify specific audiences within the Latinx community, which has grown significantly in the U.S. in recent years. La Reyna will tap into the analytics, production and technology resources of Virtue.

"Unfortunately brand marketing toward the Latinx audience often does not take into account how diverse the population actually is," says Rodriguez. "It is multi-lingual, multi-racial, young and transcultural. With La Reyna, we're aiming to help brands not only effectively reach this audience, but also better represent the community in their creative output."

Tapped to run the new agency, which is still staffing up, are Omar Quinones, who joins as managing director and chief strategy officer from Anomaly; Theresa Vargas Wyatt, who will jump from El Rey to serve as chief growth officer; and Josh Stein, who also joins from El Rey as chief operating officer. Rodriguez will serve as creative chairman.

La Reyna's first client is AB InBev, which will co-host a "Night of the Stars" experience in Austin on Nov. 2 in support of Mexican beer brand Estrella Jalisco. WeWork has also tapped La Reyna for brand programming that will roll out in 2019.

El Rey, which operates the cable network of the same name, first launched a branded-content division a few years ago and worked with such clients as Snickers, Gatorade and Dodge Ram. The creation of La Reyna formalizes that effort.

"Our take is Latinx culture is American culture," says Rodriguez, who is in postproduction on 20th Century Fox's film Alita: Battle Angel. "Latinx culture should no longer be seen as something separated from American culture. Latinos are a driving force in shaping American culture, so we want to strategically and creatively embrace this."